CACA - Compulsive Application Checkers Anonymous

[AlphabetSoup]

With "non-denominational winter holiday season" right around the corner, most people I know are pretty busy finishing up exams, doing shopping runs, and shoveling snow from their driveway (although, not in my part of Canada where snow is as foreign as 3 days without rain). I, on the other hand, am spending my days researching for my MA thesis and obsessively checking my PhD applications.

Good news! All of my letters, transcripts, test scores, and writing samples have been received by my schools of choice.

Bad news! This hasn't stopped me from checking my applications once a day for the past 4 weeks (what if I missed something? What if a professor withdrew a letter? What if ____ got lost in the mail? What if the internet conspired to delete my application from existence and crush my dreams??!!"

Bottom line: I am a compulsive checker of applications. When there are no more applications to check, I am a compulsive checker of grad cafe (because who knows... someone could be looking for just the sort of unsolicited advice that I happen to specialize in!)

Anyways, we have the "Welcome to the 2012 Cycle" forum but I hereby propose a much less useful and much more youthful (read: immature) forum in which we might discuss our no-doubt shared feeling of impending dread as February and March roll around. After all, there isn't anything wrong with arm-gnawing anxiety, it just shows you care.

Questions/Topics for discussion:

- How often do you check the status of your applications?

- How often do you go on grad cafe?

- What is the craziest thing you have done or written in preparation for these applications (i.e. spelling mistakes in SOPs? Hilarious personal statement teasers? Nagging emails to letter writers?)

- Do you check other people's "what are my chances" posts because you want to help or because you want to know how competitive you are with them?

- Have you ever responded to a "help me with my _____" post and then slightly regretted giving someone else an edge?

Enjoy!

[gellert]

Not in polisci, but I'm like you and ... yeah. This thread needs to happen.

- How often do you check the status of your applications? At least twice a day. YOU NEVER KNOW, OKAY?

- How often do you go on grad cafe? Probably 6-8 times a day. Maybe more.

- What is the craziest thing you have done or written in preparation for these applications (i.e. spelling mistakes in SOPs? Hilarious personal statement teasers? Nagging emails to letter writers?) Wondered if I should write to a school to fix a spelling mistake in an already-submitted SOP and had to be comforted by my adviser that it wasn't that big of a deal or even a noticeable error.

- Do you check other people's "what are my chances" posts because you want to help or because you want to know how competitive you are with them? A little bit of both, I think. I do want to help. I also want to know where I stand.

- Have you ever responded to a "help me with my _____" post and then slightly regretted giving someone else an edge? Yes. Oh my god does that make me a bad person?

And now I'm going to hit "post" and then mosey on over to the Minnesota website to check the status of my app again....

[balderdash]

Haha, this was me last year. Ironically, having the worst happen has made me more chilled out this year... but we'll see what happens in late January.

- How often do you check the status of your applications? Once a week at most, for now. Last year: twice daily.

- How often do you go on grad cafe? Twice a day now. Last year: every couple of hours.

- What is the craziest thing you have done or written in preparation for these applications (i.e. spelling mistakes in SOPs? Hilarious personal statement teasers? Nagging emails to letter writers?) Called one school probably 50 times last year to try to get my decision...

- Do you check other people's "what are my chances" posts because you want to help or because you want to know how competitive you are with them? Both.

- Have you ever responded to a "help me with my _____" post and then slightly regretted giving someone else an edge? Nope. Doctoral poli sci programs are intensely competitive, and ridiculously specific - there'd have to be someone with my EXACT interests competing at the same school, which is unlikely.